After several quite frenetic days of activity, we decided to slow down a bit and spent our last couple of days in Paris in a much more relaxed mode. The highlights included a visit to le chapel Saint Chappelle which has the most spectacular stained glass windows which are as tall as they are colourful.
The chapel was built from the 1100s and appears to be undergoing yet another round of renovations, which are no doubt required with some regularity. Well worth the visit and our only regret was that le Conciergerie was closed completely for work until November.
Galleries Lafayette and various other grands magasins benefitted from our patronage and we spoiled ourselves with our favourite pain au chocolates and escargots <the pastry kind>.
Saturday morning we packed our bags and left for Lyon via the Metro and then Gare de Lyon, a vibrant railway station and our start on fast trains. We thoroughly enjoyed our journey through the very green countryside where terracotta-roofed stone houses and church steeples littered the landscape along with attractive hedges that identified the patchwork fields.
Lyon is another bustling city, if not the size of Paris and yesterday we walked into the city to find that the Lyon Marathon was being organised with much ado. It was run this morning and for this reason all buses were cancelled so instead of taking the hop-on hop-off bus we chose the Metro which we navigated with ease.
Today we visited the absolutely magnificent Basilique Notre-Dame Fourviere which is a two-storey cathedral of mammoth proportions. First we went into the lower cathedral and then were fortunate enough to stand in on Sunday morning mass where the music was amazing. The views from the back of the cathedral, which is reached by funicular railway, are breathtaking.
Back to the old town we visited the Cathedral of John the Baptist and the Musee Miniature et Cinema - a fabulous building of miniature and lifesize sets from famous movies including Raiders of the Lost Ark, Planet of the Apes, X-Files, Alien, Terminator and Batman, just to name a few.
Tomorrow we pick up our hire car and head south to Avignon, the first stop in our journey around the countryside.
I should mention a couple of things in closing. Firstly, my tablet computer died two days ago, despite it only being a few months old. And as we probably can`t get it into service, unfortunately there will be no more photo downloads and therefore no further photos with the blogs, sorry folks. Secondly, I`m using a French keyboard to type this and they are very different to our own with many of the letters in different places and there`s a need to use the shift key with basic punctuation!
It`s all good fun and we look forward to more of it in the days and weeks ahead!
The chapel was built from the 1100s and appears to be undergoing yet another round of renovations, which are no doubt required with some regularity. Well worth the visit and our only regret was that le Conciergerie was closed completely for work until November.
Galleries Lafayette and various other grands magasins benefitted from our patronage and we spoiled ourselves with our favourite pain au chocolates and escargots <the pastry kind>.
Saturday morning we packed our bags and left for Lyon via the Metro and then Gare de Lyon, a vibrant railway station and our start on fast trains. We thoroughly enjoyed our journey through the very green countryside where terracotta-roofed stone houses and church steeples littered the landscape along with attractive hedges that identified the patchwork fields.
Lyon is another bustling city, if not the size of Paris and yesterday we walked into the city to find that the Lyon Marathon was being organised with much ado. It was run this morning and for this reason all buses were cancelled so instead of taking the hop-on hop-off bus we chose the Metro which we navigated with ease.
Today we visited the absolutely magnificent Basilique Notre-Dame Fourviere which is a two-storey cathedral of mammoth proportions. First we went into the lower cathedral and then were fortunate enough to stand in on Sunday morning mass where the music was amazing. The views from the back of the cathedral, which is reached by funicular railway, are breathtaking.
Back to the old town we visited the Cathedral of John the Baptist and the Musee Miniature et Cinema - a fabulous building of miniature and lifesize sets from famous movies including Raiders of the Lost Ark, Planet of the Apes, X-Files, Alien, Terminator and Batman, just to name a few.
Tomorrow we pick up our hire car and head south to Avignon, the first stop in our journey around the countryside.
I should mention a couple of things in closing. Firstly, my tablet computer died two days ago, despite it only being a few months old. And as we probably can`t get it into service, unfortunately there will be no more photo downloads and therefore no further photos with the blogs, sorry folks. Secondly, I`m using a French keyboard to type this and they are very different to our own with many of the letters in different places and there`s a need to use the shift key with basic punctuation!
It`s all good fun and we look forward to more of it in the days and weeks ahead!
Notre-Dame sounds wonderful! Enjoy the Hire Car and have fun "driving about"........:-)
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